Saturday, 30 May 2009

Drag Me to Hell

Sam Raimi's latest goes back to the shocks and schlocks well. Alison Lohman's aspirational loan clerk has her eyes on a big office promotion, unfortunately her every effort is undermined by rich-boy slick dicking. She needs to show her stones, and what better way to do that than to have an elderly crone evicted? Said Witch doesn't take this slight lightly, cursing Lohman to three days of misery before she is whisked off to the underworld by a goat ghoul. Drag Me to Hell dances expertly between boiling soundscape scares, and revolting, oozing creep-outs. There is a gonzo fight sequence that winningly combines WWF test-of-strengths, prowling feline aggression and bone-popping body recalibration. It's a dizzy cocktail that offers both winces and gasping gore guffaws. Raimi masterfully twists tone and tense from horror to comedy, and back again, without ever undermining the escalating sense of peril. The perfect ghost house thrill ride, and a demonstration of what genuine talent can achieve within the oxymoronic slum of PG-13 horror.